of course it would fall apart! most of our preconceived notions come from advertisements
imagine all the illusions that would be broken:
my 600 dollar phone won't turn me into a successful businessman
my expensive d5100 won't magically take me to exotic locations
people will forget the "expensive car=hot women" equation and buy cars that are actually useful and that would be the end of most of the automobile
industry.
Without commercials people would realize that not all men are drooling idiots and not all women always know better.
People would realize that just because you buy apple products doesn't mean you are sophisticated, or that just because you use a windows pc you
won't be an empowered business man/woman.

It would be a world of dysfunctional depressed drinking self harming people.
And that might be amusing, but it would be hell to clean up after them.

I think people would be glad to be rid of advertising at first (I'm anti-advertising myself, so im biased) but would soon find themselves with an
identity crisis. No one to tell people what's trendy, or give them some sort of purpose through consumerism. Eventually things would even out and I
think people would gain a true sense of identity again, one not attached to the scent of Glade candle they enjoy, or what brand name is sewed on their
running shorts.

It would be a disaster for the consumer driven economy, the usual advertising tropes of planned obsolescence and false scarcity et al would be
useless.

I think for the average person not relying on a factory job producing mass market goods, life would be happier and simpler. If your job was tied up on
consumerism...you might be sol.

Well, lets consider how much of our economy depends on advertising...not just for drawing people in to purchasing goods or services, but consider the
vast throngs of people employed in advertising to get a good view of what would really happen.

ATS...gone in fact most websites, certainly the ones using the most bandwidth would disappear without gaining monthly subscriptions. Photographers,
graphic designers, management, delivery people, restaurants that cater to the ad agencies employees, the ripple effect is too far ranging, to deeply
in bedded in this boondoggle of a society we have developed.

Is advertising and the media everything negative attributed to it? Sure, absolutely, but until we have a system wide reset of values and remove
central banking and most of the monetary systems connected to our present way of life, returning to a Gold standard, or some other such system...Im
afraid we are doomed to have propagandized advertising.

On a side note Vermont outlawed billboards on their highways, and I must admit, the shear joy of driving through Vermont vs. New Hampshire in regards
being accosted by bad signs along the road, why its immeasurable.

originally posted by: Borisbanger
Given that Advertising is about persuading people to buy goods they dont need with money they dont have unfortunately it does look indispensable.

No, that's not what advertising is about.

Advertising serves several purposes, not least telling you that there's something out there that you may want to buy. Obviously, advertising aims to
be persuasive, but if there was no advertising then ultimately things would stagnate as no one would know that there are things to buy.

For example. My lawn mower's broken. How do I get it repaired / get a new one. If there was no advertising then I would not be able to find out,
so a fat lot of good it would do me!

The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

Would life style and society fall apart if commercial advertising was suddenly banned.

Since commercial advertising is protected by the Constitution (Free speech), then yes, society would fall apart because the Constitutional rights of
people to free speech would be denied. And commerce would be interrupted for no good reason, which runs counter to a capitalist society that a lot
of the planet now runs on. So that would also be another reason that society would fall apart, or at the very least it would become much less
free.

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.

My favourite material goods come in black, are cheap, and are functional.

I never purchase things according to advertising campaigns, and actively avoid interacting with heavily marketed products, unless I have a taste for
them which preceeds my being accessed by that marketing. For example, I have always enjoyed Hellmanns mayonnaise more than other mayo based products
from other suppliers. Hence, I continue to eat it.

Where clothing is concerned, I make my own way, and am not in the slightest bit influenced by advertising. When it comes to equipment and
accessories, I am more likely to buy something cheap and useful, than something expensive and ridiculous, and if I can purchase it over the counter,
from an independant retailer, the chances are that I WILL purchase it, in cash, from just such a retailer.

Essentially, I behave as if I had never even seen an advert.

I can conceive of no way, in which things could fail to improve in this world, particularly the western world, if advertising of the sort we see
these days, were to simply cease in its entirety.

like I said, the economy would have to change fundamentally. Which I think would be a good thing. I personally don't see capitalism, or any other ism
which operates on centralized banking/ monetary economics, as being sustainable or good for the future of humanity or the earth.

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